I'm thinking some sore of really dense oak. The side profile looks very much like the one I had.
No oak for sure. This wood does not have rays, while oak always has radial rays.
Does it float? I got my metal lathe from China and the pallet was made out of a wood that sank. A boatbuilder told me it was probably lignum vitae
Definitely NOT lignum vitae. That wood is wayyyy too expensive to even consider it for making a pallet from it! There is many more woods that sink in water, not only lignum vitae.
looks kind of like ipe but it is hard to tell. Does it have a scent to it if you scrape it?
The grain appears to be too course for ipé. That wood has a much finer texture, and usually (but not always) sinks in water, while this piece does not.
Looks like Palm wood to me.
I salvage wood from skids too when I see a cool piece.
It could be palm 'wood', but I'm not sure. The end grain picture appears to show annular growth rings, while palm does not have growth rings. But these could also be circular saw grooves in the end grain? A clearer picture of the end grain will help, because these fuzzy pictures with too little light are not of much help. Palm wood is easy to confirm or rule out by yourself.
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Pallet are usually made from the cheapest wood locally available. Try to find out where this pallets (or the products that it was carrying) was coming from. South America? Africa? Asia? This will help you a LOT if you want to find out the wood species. But then again: why would it matter? You have the wood already, it was for free, and it is too short to make any load bearing bow limb from it. You don't need to know the physical and technical properties if you use it for handles and overlays. If you insist on a Wood ID, post some better pictures, taken outside in daylight, with the camera in 'macro' mode. But I think this is a typical pallet wood that is not traded in Western countries, and may only have a Thai or Brazilian name.
